Brad Anderson’s action thriller The Silent Hour, starring Joel Kinnaman and Mark Strong, nabbed a slew of worldwide pre-sales at the recent American Film Market.

AGC International, the international sales and distribution arm of Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios, closed deals with Square One Entertainment in Germany; Signature Entertainment in the U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand; and Wild Bunch in France.

Other territories sold include Vertice in Italy and Latin America; You Planet in Spain; WWE in Benelux; SF Studios in Scandinavia; Prorom Media in Eastern Europe; MGN in Baltics and CIS; Ascot Elite in Switzerland; Nos Lusomundo in Portugal; United King in Israel; Empire Entertainment in South Africa and Movie Cloud in Taiwan.

Ahead of casting a female co-lead, production on The Silent Hour is set to start in Malta and Toronto in February. 

The Boston-set crime drama will see Kinnaman play a police detective who suffers a workplace accident that leaves him hearing impaired. Sixteen months later, as an interpreter for the police department, he battles a team of corrupt cops trying to eliminate a deaf murder witness in an apartment building.

AGC Studios will finance and produce the picture with Eric Paquette’s Meridian Pictures. Anderson will helm The Silent Hour from a screenplay by Dan Hall.